Do a look a little startled? That’s because Kitten Mom woke me up for this picture.
I’ve been very busy the last two weeks. I’m growing like a weed (that’s what Kitten Mom says…) and I’m learning lots of new things and developing some wonderful skills. I can now streak up the screen door all the way to the top every time the Kitten Mom tries to come in! I love to race through my crackly tube when we go downstairs. I can jump higher and race faster then ever, and there are so many wonderful things that I can do now.
Like hunt bugs!
This moth was hanging out on the wall in the bedroom one night…when I saw it!
I launched right into motion! I flew past the Kitten Mom’s head, pushed off the headboard, and hit the wall right next to the moth. I knocked some stuff off the table as I followed the moth down (who knew the Kitten Mom could grab a falling lamp that fast! Almost kitten-like in her reflexes…) That moth took off across the floor and I dove through a gap under the table to grab it mid-air. What an awesome move! I looked like the kitten version of She-Ra!! Then the moth darted sideways and flew into the bookshelf…
Hey, where did it go? I saw it fly in here, but now it is gone…
I found one of the wings on the floor, but the moth is just gone. I’ve been looking for it for days now in the bookshelf and there just isn’t any sign of it. Hey, that is so unfair! I wasn’t done playing with it yet! I’ve looked in the bathtub, and under the bed, and all through the bookshelf several times, but I still can’t find it. Darn.
I asked MacKnitzie where the moth is and he doesn’t know either.
Today I got over the moth and doubled down on playing with the water in the toilet. The Kitten Mom keeps messing with it and the WATER MOVES!! This is so cool. Almost as cool as the moth.
Sigh.
Forget the toilet. I still want my moth. Maybe tonight it will be there if I push down more books…
Notes from the Kitten Mom:
Hannah is a very effective bug hunter and has located several creepy crawlies since she came to live with me. I don’t know whether to be grateful that she locates those spiders or horrified that there are spiders for her to run to ground. Anyway, she plays with them until I take them away. Moths, however, are where she shines as she can instantly transform into an athletic airborne kitten wonder. Who knew?
Week 26?! Do you realize that we are now at the halfway point for the year? I don’t know about you, but 2020 has been just horrendous so far. I do hope that it decides to straighten up and fly right for the second part of the year…
There has been a lot going on for me this week, but I think that I will just start out with the Hannah update. Hannah, who is almost certainly the last kitten that I will raise, is turning out to be the perfect mix of all the cats I have loved in the past. She is affectionate and attached to me, easy to distract and train, smart, talkative, and fearless. She ignores the plants and hasn’t gone after my knitting all week!!
She is particularly fond of little stuffed toys that she can fling around and carry from room to room in her mouth.
Okay, it isn’t all sunshine and roses. She climbs into the refrigerator and dishwasher every time I open them. She started climbing the screen door and curtains today. She pestered me to wake up this morning because she wanted me to turn off the oxygen machine so she could play downstairs… I’m hoping that that doesn’t turn into a thing! Still, I am so happy to have my little buddy now that it appears that Covid-19 won’t be going away any time soon in my part of the world.
Knitting
I’m making some progress on my socks! The first sock is done, and now I’m cruising through the second sock. I’m focusing on small projects that I can quickly stuff into a project bag because… kitten!!
Look at how much progress I’ve made!I really like the way the knitted fabic looks!
I love the stripes so much that I’ve been daydreaming and trying to work out how to knit tipless gloves by adapting my usual fingerless mitt pattern to put on the half fingers. Wanting to maximize the amount of leftover yarn I dug through the stash and located the purple yarn that I’m using for the heel and toe portions of the socks. I’m pretty pleased with the look, and now I’m wondering how to incorporate the purple into the gloves. My Ravelry notes are here.
Garden
The week has been one of gloomy afternoons and thunderstorms. Luckily I haven’t had damaging wind or hail, and the roses continue to strut their stuff. My Princess Alexandra of Kent rose in particular continues to shine.
This rose is a David Austin English rose and I keep thinking that I should get some more. My neighbors and I fixed the fences this summer, so maybe those new fences should have some climbing roses planted near them. Something to think about. I really like yellow roses…
Books
I finished The Mirror & The Light this week. I hardly know what to say. This is a rich, rich book that will continue to haunt me in the weeks to come and I may need to read the entire Wolf Hall trilogy again. Maybe it is because I am entering my fourth month of isolation, and I have lots of time on my hands to reflect on things, but the richness of the characters and the subtle connections of the past to the present as the story plays out, but never really ends, are just astounding. Cromwell ponders on how images painted in the past bleed through new paint to show in the present as he remembers violent actions in his past. Memories of his years as a soldier rise as he marches into meetings and dinners. Near the end of his life, imprisoned in the Tower of London, he recaptures that transformative moment, broken and bloodied in the street, when he abandoned his childhood to launch on the path to who he was now. At the start of this book one of the standout lines is, “if you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?” At Cromwell’s own beheading there is a sense of truth and transition again; I was dreading the end of the book, but you know what, it was actually hopeful and a befitting closure to a great life.
After a book like that, what next? Science fiction, of course! I launched right into a fun little space military opera that is a three book series and I’m happily working my way through it.
There are a number of characters who are slowly being developed and connected as the story line progresses. There was a war. One planet lost. The losers are suffering under harsh peace treaty stipulations. There is some type of rebellion brewing. I sniff corporate greed and political machinations on the horizon. Must keep reading…
Quilting
Look at this! A new category just appeared again. This week has been kind of tough on me joint-wise, and I have finally made myself admit that I need to lay off the knitting for a while. Okay, my joints are really kicking up a fuss, and my shoulder is the biggest complainer. Sigh. It’s like all of the tendons and ligaments are under attack at once, and my drugs aren’t keeping up any more. I’m already on a lot of drugs, and in the world of Covid I’m fearful of getting steroid injections into the worse joint complainers because it increases my immunosuppressive load. Scleroderma, you need to behave yourself!! Anyway, I need to lay off the knitting, so I dived into my endless stash of “projects that I want to make someday” and…. pulled out a really cute art quilt!
This is the first block of an eight block quilt.
This is the first block to build “Calling Me Home” by McKenna Ryan. The picture is built by tracing the pattern onto little bits of fabric that are then fused together. No sewing at all until I get the whole quite top put together. I’m thinking that my shoulder can handle this…
All of these little bits of fabric, to be exact.
It’s like an adventure! All I have to do is figure out which little fabric bit goes with what. Luckily I have that picture to help guide me. This is going to be a little like building a jigsaw puzzle! I hope that Hannah behaves herself while I’m cutting all of the pieces out.
Have a great week, everyone!!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
Maya is the last cat that I need to knit in the family. There is a big technical problem with Maya… she is excessively fluffy!!
Maya was adopted a few years ago from a cat shelter to be a companion to my son’s cat Daxter. “She’s a firecracker,” my son was told when he looked at her in the kitten room. She certainly is! She pretty much ruled the kitten room at the shelter, and now she pretty much rules the roost at my son’s place. Of course I need to knit her up too.
Maya’s coloration is what is referred to as “tuxedo” , a beautiful black and white pattern. Her extreme fluffiness is the Maine coon part. Her attitude is all her own… do you see she was swatting at the camera with her paw while this picture was being taken?
I’ve been collecting black and white mohair yarn to create a knitted Maya for weeks now. I plan to use the usual pattern: Cat by Claire Garland. Once I had the yarn collected I still kind of worried about how all that black would look on the finished cat.
Here’s the problem: there is a lot of shaping in the cat’s face, and I also learned that it was important to use shading with different combinations of yarn to make the face more realistic. Hard to do with all black and all white patches…
I spend more time than I want to admit to watching videos on Facebook. I also watch an artist create paintings of pets… DawgArt Pet Portraits. She paints live on Facebook and it is so interesting to see how she creates realistic pet portraits using unusual colors. One of her tricks is to use purple and other dark hues instead of black. My son suggested that I use purple yarn in Maya’s black patches. Oh. I have purple yarn in the stash…
I swatched lots of ideas. Purple mohair with black yarn. Black mohair with purple yarn. Purple yarn with clumps of knitted in black wool from a fleece. The Black mohair with purple yarn works the best and is what I plan to use. Once the black halo develops the purple will just shine through and will add the texture that I need.
Still worried about getting the fluff affect I went digging through the stash hunting for really fuzzy mohair that could be dyed black.
Oh, this is really fuzzy yarn. Into the dye pot it went!!The dyed yarn is mostly black with some pink highlights in it… perfect for a tuxedo cat with purple undertones in the black sections!Here is all of the yarn that I plan to use to create knitted Maya.
I’m going to use two strands of mohair (Rowan and Shibui) with purple for her face and will add in the strand of dyed mohair on her body; with a little brushing I’m hoping that the finished knitted cat will have the illusion of long hair. All of the black portions will use purple yarn with the mohair, and the white is staying white. I will need to do a little embroidery with white on her nose, and some trickery to get her lips just right, but I think that I know what to do now.
Whew! All of that planning is now out of the way and I’m looking forward to finally start knitting.
Hurry up Nana! I’m waiting for my knitted twin to arrive!
Yarn, Books & Roses 